The Lives of Margaret Fuller. John Matteson on Woman-Stirred

This week on Woman-Stirred Radio, I am delighted to welcome back Pulitzer prize winner  John Matteson, author of Outcasts in Eden. His new biography, The Lives of Margaret Fuller has already garnered critical acclaim. (New York Times Book Review January 22, 2012)

Fuller, the most famous American feminist writer and thinker of her generation, wrote literary and social commentary for Horace Greeley and was the very first foreign correspondent for an American newspaper. She is also the author of the first great work of American feminism, Women in the Nineteenth Century.

The eldest of her family, Fuller was born in Massachusetts in 1810 and under the stern tutelage of her father was known as a prodigy:  "it should be emphasized that she enjoyed this role and, at least by the time she was eight, was not being compelled to fill her mind with Latin and Greek grammar entirely against her will" (23).

A difficult personality, whose intellectual brilliance outpaced her emotional development, Fuller established friendships with men who fired her imagination and love of learning. She was also condescending and suffered for it, but learning, as she matured, that she could "take the ordinary hopes and feelings of those she favored and to raise them to a height of poetic beauty and importance" (72).

She made friends with Emerson, taught with Bronson Alcott at his innovative Boston school, and later, in Europe, met Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Sand.

While living in Europe, Fuller fell in love with an Italian nobleman, Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, and bore his son. In 1848, Fuller joined the fight for Italian independence and reported on the war while caring for the wounded within range of enemy cannon. Margaret Fuller was, in short, no slouch.

So please join me this Thursday, January 26th at 5:00, for a wonderful discussion with John Matteson about the fascinating Margaret Fuller.

Want to join the conversation? Don't be shy! Call the air studio at 802.454.7762.

Woman-Stirred Radio is underwritten by Sinister Wisdom, celebrating 35 years of  lesbian-feminist arts and letters. Woman-Stirred Radio broadcasts live on WGDR 91.1 fm and WGDH 91.7 fm, Goddard College's community radio station located in Plainfield, Vermont.

Robin Bernstein and JD Glass are Woman-Stirred

This Thursday, January 12th, Merry Gangemi welcomes queer writer JD Glass, and scholar Robin Bernstein, to Woman-Stirred Radio.

First up, at 4:15 JD Glass, whose novels include Punk Like Me, Red Light, X, American Goth, and Core. A post-postmodern novelist, Glass's work explores and dissects the complex interstices between queer culture and the rapidly evolving digital world. Her work is gritty, iconic, and driven by unrepentant honesty and sharply cynical wisdom.

JD Glass reading at Bent Pages

In the literary traditions of Sara Schulman and Eileen Myles, JD Glass is steadily making her mark on the NY and national literary scene. We'll talk trends, changes, and technology; personalities, politics, and I hope, the fast evolving notions of God in the queer universe.

A Lambda Literary nominee, JD Glass is the author of more than five novels and lives in Staten Island. When she's not writing or working an an EMT in NYC, she plays music with her rock and roll band.

Jd's interview begins at 4:15 (eastern) and the air studio # is 802.454.7762. Give us a call if you want to join the conversation.


Then at 5:00, I welcome Robin Bernstein, associate professor of African and African American studies and studies of women, gender, and sexuality at Harvard University, to Woman-Stirred Radio to talk about her new book Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights ((NYU, 2011).

In Racial Innocence, Bernstein examines the concept of childhood innocence and its construct, enforcement, and insinuation into U.S. society and culture.

Robin Bernstein

Using archival photos, books, toys, theatrical props, and household items and memorabilia, Bernstein narrates a fascinating and deeply disquieting analysis of  of how, in the context of Black experience of childhood, "'scriptive things'... invite or prompt historically-located practices while allowing for resistance and social improvisation.... Throughout Racial Innocence, Bernstein shows how 'innocence' gradually became the exclusive province of white children--- until the Civil Rights Movement
succeeded not only in legally desegregating public spaces, but in culturally desegregating the concept of childhood itself" (NYU).

So please join Merry Gangemi, JD Glass, and Robin Bernstein, this Thursday, January 12th from 4 to 6 pm on Woman-Stirred Radio. Interviews begin at 4:15.  Want to join the conversation? Call the air studio at 802.454.7762 or email your questions to merrygangemi@gmail.com.

Woman-Stirred Radio is a queer cultural journal that broadcasts live every Thursday afternoon from 4 to 6 pm (eastern). You can listen locally at 91.1 fm and 91.7 fm, or you can stream us live at http://wgdr.org.


Woman-Stirred Radio is underwritten by listeners' contributions and by Sinister Wisdom, the oldest lesbian journal of arts and letters, celebrating 35 years.

Sally Bellerose and The Girls Club on Woman-Stirred Radio

Sally Bellerose

This Thursday, January 5th, at 4:15 (eastern), I am delighted to welcome author Sally Bellerose, whose new novel, The Girls Club, has garnered great reviews—and deservedly so. 


Joan Nestle, author and co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, (now permanently located in Brooklyn, New York), says Sally Bellerose “is one of our finest writers” and “gives us this best yet portrait of a working class lesbian coming out in the early 70s.” 


The Girls Club is well-paced, the dialogue authentic and witty. The novel is engaging, realistic, fun, and wrenching, as the narrative opens numerous windows into the mind and character of the book’s main protagonist, Cora Rose, as she copes with her Catholic upbringing, two wild older sisters, a wacky but lovable extended family, and the eventual surety of her identity as a lesbian. 


As for so many women who came out in the early days of the Gay Rights Movement (and even more so pre-Stonewall), Cora Rose's journey of discovery takes many turns and twists, replete with an obsessive fascination (with women), marriage, children, and the dykes downstairs. 


So please join us this Thursday, January 5th at 4:15 for a lively and interesting conversation with Sally Bellerose.


And at 5:00 poet Denise Evans Durkin joins us to talk about the creative process, the poet's life, and her new manuscript!


Want to join in the conversation? Call the air studio at 802.454.7762

Woman-Stirred Radio is underwritten by Sinister Wisdom, celebrating 35 years of  lesbian-feminist arts and letters. Woman-Stirred Radio broadcasts live on WGDR 91.1 fm and WGDH 91.7 fm, Goddard College's community radio station located in Plainfield, Vermont.

nancy Sherman and Patricia Nell Warren are Woman-Stirred!

This coming Thursday, December 22nd, at 4:15,  Woman-Stirred Radio welcomes military ethicist, Nancy Sherman, author of The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers (WW Norton, 2011), and then at 5:00, best-selling lesbian author Patricia Nell Warren, joins us to talk about her new memoir, My West (Wildcat, 2011).

The Untold War probes the complexities of a soldier's internal war, and what Sherman describes as "the moral weight that soldiers carry on their shoulders," and "examines the full arc of combat from deployment, to battlefield, to the soldier's return to civilian life."

The narratives are compelling and enlightening; personal experiences intersect with training, duty and obedience to answer questions such as: Is revenge ever justified? How does a soldier make peace with the guilt of killing or of surviving? What are the moral obligations of a a soldier interrogator when it is clear the prisoner is in psychological duress?

Trained as a philosopher and psychoanalyst, Nancy Sherman served as the Inaugural Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the Naval Academy and lectures widely on resilience, trauma, and military ethics. She is a university professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, and is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for 2011/2012.

Nancy Sherman's interview begins at 4:15. You can listen locally on 91.1 fm (Montpelier area) and 91.7 fm (Hardwick area) or stream us live at http://wgdr.org. Want to join in the conversation? The air studio number is 802.454.7762.

At 5:00, Woman-Stirred Radio welcomes Patricia Nell Warren to discuss her new memoir, My West: Personal Writings on the American West . The book is layered with fascinating details and sharp observations as she tells us about pheasants, and long horn cattle, Indian mounds, or the handmade jewelry of artist Heyoehkah Merrifield and the significance of the métis sash in Charles M. Russel's art. No matter what the subject, Warren's writing is "rayed through by a changing perspective over half a century," from the spiritual mysteries of native culture, to  the wild ferocity of Calamity Jane and pioneering rodeo champion Alice Greenough.

Patricia Nell Warren was born in Helena, Montana in 1936. She is the author of more than eight novels, including the ground-breaking novel, The Front Runner, the first novel about gay love to win popular acclaim. "Her literary and political work has won  numerous awards and accolades, including the Arizona Human Rights Fund's Barry Goldwater Award, the National Cowboy Hall of Fame's Western Heritage Award, the Lambda Literary Award, the Saints & Sinners Hall of Fame, and the Gay and Lesbian Literary Hall of Fame" (source).

 Patricia Nell Warren's interview begins at 5:00. You can listen locally on 91.1 fm (Montpelier area) and 91.7 fm (Hardwick area) or stream us live at http://wgdr.org. Want to join the conversation? The air studio number is 802.454.7762.

Woman-Stirred Radio is underwritten by Sinister Wisdom, celebrating 35 years of  lesbian-feminist arts and letters. Woman-Stirred Radio broadcasts live on WGDR 91.1 fm and WGDH 91.7 fm, Goddard College's community radio station located in Plainfield, Vermon.

Sophie Blackall and Deborah Willis are Woman-Stirred

This week on Woman-Stirred Radio I am delighted to welcome artist Sophie Blackall, whose first book for adults, Missed Connections, has drawn deserved attention and great reviews.

Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found (Workman Publishing, 2011) began as a BLOG based on real, anonymous messages posted online by strangers. Fascinated by the thousands of posted Missed Connections, Blackall's images  bring whimsey and depth to the posts, and celebrate the mysteries of attraction and  love-at-first- sight. Missed Connections reminds us that the age-old "remembered glance, smile, or fleeting conversation" can slow the speed of the digital world.

Author and illustrator of more than twenty children's books, Blackall has won the Ezra Jack Keats Award, the BCCB Blue Ribbon Award, and a Founder's Award from the Society of Illustrators. She is an honor recipient of the Horn Book Award for Pecan Pie Baby, and the Ivy and Bean series. Blackall's Big Red Lollipop won the New York Times Top-Ten Picture Book Award for 2010. Her iillustrations have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Gourmet, Food & Wine, and Town & Country. Interview begins at 4:15 p.m. The air studio number is 802.454.7762.

Then at 5:00, I welcome Deborah Willis, author of Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs, and Reflections in Black. A recipient of MacArthur, Guggenheim, and Fletcher Fellowships, Deborah Willis is chair and professor of New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Photography and Imaging.
Her new collection, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present is the first photographic history of black beauty in African American culture, "a story overlooked by most of America" (N).  Posing Beauty explores notions of Black beauty and the import of the pose, which expands and manipulates the viewer's perspective. Nicholas Mirzoeff argues "the pose is the essence of the photograph" (xvii), and as beauty and the pose exist in ever-changing cultural and political contexts, historical juxtapositions make the book even more compelling. Deborah Willis's interview begins at 5p.m.

So tune in this Thursday, December 15th 4 to 6 p.m. to Woman-Stirred Radio for  diverse perspectives thoughtful discussion, open dialogue. Interviews start at 4:15. Listen every Thursday and join the WSR conversation with writers, visual artists, musicians, academics, policy makers, and special guests. The air studio number is 802.454.7762.

Woman-Stirred Radio broadcasts live every Thursday afternoon, from 4 to 6, on WGDR 91.1 fm and WGDH 91.7fm, Goddard College's Community Radio stations. Click HERE to listen live. Click HERE for a selection of WSR podcasts. Click HERE for information about WSR and upcoming guests.

Wendy Call and Ellen Hart are Woman-Stirred!

This week, on Thursday, December 8th, on Woman-Stirred Radio, I'm delighted to welcome Wendy Call, author of No Word for Welcome: the Mexican village faces the global economy (U of Nebraska Press), and delighted to welcome back mystery maven Ellen Hart, whose new book, The Lost Ladies of Lost Lake, has been released by Minotaur Press (St. Martin's/McMillan).

At 4:15, Wendy Call, writer, editor, teacher, and translator, comes on air to talk about No Word for Welcome: the Mexican village faces the global economy, a fascinating and intimate portrait of the peoples and cultures of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrow "waist of Mexico" which stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. The region is known for "its strong women, spirited marketplaces, and deep sense of independence" (UNP). Call's narrative about her years in the isthmus among the Huave and Zapotec, who now struggle with the consequences of industrialization and development that has been driven by the post-NAFTA global economy. "With timely and invaluable insights into the development battle, Call shows that the people who have suffered most from economic globalization have some of the clearest ideas about how we can all survive it" (UNP).

Wendy Call is a recent writer-in-residence at Seattle University, New College of Florida, and Harborview Medical Center. She is the coeditor of Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writer's Guide, author of various essays, and translator of Mexican poetry and short fiction.

At 5:00, Ellen Hart joins us for a fun-fest about her latest Jane Lawless mystery, The Lost ladies of Lost Lake.  "While caring for a friend after she takes a nasty fall, restauranteur Jane Lawless discovers that her friend is actually much more afraid of a tragic accident that took place years ago---and the reporter snooping around it---" (SMP).  The Lost Women of Lost Lake is another adventure from one of the best writers of lesbian/gay mysteries!

The author of more than seventeen novels, Ellen Hart is a Lambda Literary and Minnesota Book Award winner.  She lives and writes in Minnesota.

Want to join the conversation? Call the air-studio at 802.454.7762

Extra Virginity and Birds of Paradise on Woman-Stirred radio

This week, Tom Mueller, author of Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil,  and Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Birds of Paradise, visit Merry Gangemi on Woman-Stirred Radio.

First up, at 4:15 p. m. (eastern), is journalist Tom Mueller, whose new book, Extra Virginity: The  Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil (WW Norton, 2011) has shaken consumers and producers alike. An essential foodstuff for thousands of years, extra-virgin olive oil is also utilized in medicines, religious rituals, and health and beauty products. Extra-virgin olive oil is the product garnered from the first pressing of the fruit, and is highly valued for its uniquely beneficial properties as a monounsaturated oil. Mueller's carefully researched and well-written book, Extra Virginity, not only explores the implications and consequences of an impure product, but also exposes the enormous financial windfalls available to producers who adulterate the oil, as well as fraudulent shipping practices and export/import policies, the brokers and purchasers who turn a blind eye, and the government inspectors and wholesale/retail quality control experts who are unwilling or unable to stop the fraud. The book is interesting, engaging, informative, and for some, will change the way they think about the food industry and the laxity of FDA oversight in an age of slash and burn economics.

Free-lance journalist Tom Mueller writes for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and other magazines. He lives in a medieval farmhouse the Ligurian countryside, near Genoa, Italy.

Then at 5:00 p.m., I interview Diana Abu-Jabar, whose new novel, Birds of Paradise, was released by WW Norton this year. The novel is structured around Felice, the teenage daughter of Avis and Brian, a master baker and a real estate lawyer, and their son Stanley, who owns and manages a thriving natural foods market. Set against the backdrop of Miami, Florida, the narrative unfolds in a style and manner not unlike the very essence of the city itself, with its diverse, multi-cultural neighborhoods, teen homelessness, the romanticism and allure of sugar, and social blindness to the long-term consequences of sprawling urban development. Fraught with the complexity of twenty-first century American life, Birds of Paradise relentlessly excavates the secrets and ambiguity of childhood, social and familial moral responsibility, and compartmentalization that grows like lichens between the realities and shattered perspectives of parenthood and financial success. One of the more fascinating undercurrents of the book is the inability of spouses, parents, children, siblings, friends, and business associates to communicate with each other in an age in which communication technology is exploding and the facades of the American Dream are crumbling.

Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of Origin, Cresent, Arabian Jazz, and the Language of Baklava. her work has been published in many magazine, including Ms, Salon, Vogue, Gourmet, the Washington Post, and the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.  A recipient of the PEN Center USA Award, Abu-Jaber divides her times between Coral Gables, Florida, and Portland, Oregon.

So please tune in this Thursday, December 1, from 4 to 6 p.m. to Woman-Stirred Radio. Interviews start at 4:15. Want to join the conversation? Call the air studio 802.454.7762.